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Ann: Quarterly Report (Appendix 4C), page-20

  1. 185 Posts.
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    Here is my take:

    Revenue growth

    • It doubled yoy to close 2019 at USD1.65m (average of $0.41m per quarter). March 2020 quarter Revenue was $0.66m
    • Let’s assume $3m in revenues for 2020 (Some would argue this is a stretch, but let's go with it). That has SPT averaging $0.75m per quarter

    Gross margin

    • About 72% reported last year. This is good, but if they don’t get revenue up, it’s not enough to cover their operating expenses
    • More on this later

    Expenses

    • R&D almost tripled to $2.8m in 2019 – you would hope that this spend will increase their chances of accelerated revenue growth, if not, it’s money down the drain. Current quarter was $0.18m, however equivalent quarter previous year was $0.29m. It seems as though R&D is not front loaded, it hits later in the financial year.
      • If they want to grow and not be left behind, they need to spend.
      • So let's assume $1.5m for 2020 (they might exceed this).
    • Sales and Marketing expenditure. This increased 7 fold to $7m in 2019. This is significant. Again, if they increased sales and marketing and R&D expenditure so significantly, yet revenue growth is lagging they run out of runway to convince investors that the cashburn is worth it.
      • Sales and marketing expenditure March 2020 quarter was $0.66m. Assume by year end this is $3m.
    • General and admin expenses in 2019 - $13m!!!!!!! A significant portion of this was share based payments for staff. I don’t know how they can justify paying out $7m of share based payments to staff when they’ve just cracked $1m revenue for the first time (oh that's right, they're short of cash, so why not give them some shares).
      • Other general and admin expenses included salaries and related expenses (which tripled), professional fees (auditing and consulting) which increased 5 fold last year.
      • Staff costs+admin and corporate costs for March 2020 quarter was $2.83m. Current run rate is $11m spend by year end.
      • Assume they tighten admin costs given the environment, and they end the year having spent $8m on this category. Trimming the run rate by $1.1m per quarter remaining.
      • Again, I don't know how they sustain high growth under this scenario - merchants also under pressure, as is the consumer….
    • Assume bad debts of $0.6m (see below note on future repayments)
    • Lease $0.14m for the year

    What does this all mean – let’s try and consider acouple of scenarios

    • Scenario 1 - stripping out OpEx costs by $10-11m year on year (unlikely, but let's see) and increasing revenues to $3m in 2020
      • They don’t have any loans, but I’d be surprised if a bank gave them a loan
      • They have $7.65m cash on hand + $2.69m future repayments from self-funded merchants. Assume some of these will be bad debts given current environment. Self-funded merchants are probably small and under increasing pressure. So there real cash on hand is $7.65m, the $2.69m hangs in the balance as a receivable. Let's assume 25% of the $2.69m is not recoverable, that leaves you with $2m bringing the total cash balance to $9.65m.
      • If they increase revenue to $3m in 2020, assume a 70% gross margin
      • Gross margin on $3m is $2.1m. Which means they have $2.1m left in the kitty to pay their expenses
      • Expenses last year were $23m, this year based on the above expense run rate and cost containment measures - assume $14m (unlikely, but let's see how we go)
      • $2.1m gross margin less $14m operating expenses
      • Loss of $11.9m
      • There goes all your cash…. And this is under a scenario where they increase revenue from $1.6m to $3m yoy and cost out quite signficantly
      • They will need to do capital raising and/or find a bank to give them a loan (which bank is going to give them a loan at this rate and in this environment??)

    • Scenario 2
      • Assume everything above remains constant, except for revenue
      • Assume they go nuts and achieve $5m revenues in 2020 at 70% gross margin (that means they will need to generate $1.45m in revenues on average over the remaining 3 quarters, in other terms 2.2x the March 2020 quarter for the next 3 quarters)
      • Gross margin = $3.5
      • Expenses are $14m, the same as Scenario 1 (a decrease from the $23m, which I think is ambitious, but they will have to otherwise they won’t survive).
      • $3.5m gross margin less $14m operating expenses
      • Loss of $10.5m
      • Again, there goes all your cash

    Question then is howdoes the business model need to change to shift things, because you can'tassume current rate of growth into perpetuity. The growth is off a low baseanyway, and SPT risk running out of puff and capping out.

    I'm sure managementare thinking about this, because the current model won't do it. They need tosupplement it or re-engineer it completely, or sell the IP and give everyone anexit.

    So, to the forum - happy to be challenged/corrected on this. Also happy to get your thoughts on future prospects.

    THis is not advice - just an opinion based on my own analysis of the facts.

 
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